Till the day of battle ended in the triumph of the night.
Jack Crawford was a native of Sunderland, where he died in 1831. In 1890 a statue was erected to his memory in his native town by public subscription, and was unveiled on April 8th by Lord Camperdown, a descendant of Admiral Duncan, in whose ship Crawford served.
[THE LOSS OF H.M.S. REPULSE.]
BY G. H. WALKER.
The Repulse was one of the ships belonging to the Channel fleet, under the command of Sir Allen Gardner, but had been detached for the purpose of intercepting provision vessels going into Brest. On the night of March 10th, 1800, she struck upon a sunken rock, supposed to be the Mace, about twenty-five leagues southeast of Ushant. The crew made good a landing on one of the Glenan Islands, about two miles from the continent. Here the captain, and most of the officers, were made prisoners, and sent to Quimper; but Mr. Rother, the first lieutenant, Mr. Gordon, the fifth, Mr. Finn, the master, two midshipmen, and eight seamen, got into the larger cutter; and, on the fourth day after leaving the ship, during which interval they experienced bad weather, and were, at times, near perishing, arrived safe at Guernsey.
The following letter from one of the officers who escaped, to his father, gives a full account of the loss of the Repulse, and likewise of the adventures of the boat's crew, from the time of their quitting the ship till their arrival at Guernsey:—
"Guernsey, March 13th, 1800.
"My dear Father,—I embrace the opportunity of a packet sailing for England, to acquaint you with the unfortunate fate of the Repulse. Coming off the Penmarks, in company with the Agamemnon, on Saturday, March 9th, it then blowing a very heavy gale of wind, Captain Alms was thrown down the companion ladder by the rolling of the ship, by which accident some of his ribs were broken and he was much bruised. The same day, we parted company with the Agamemnon, in chase of a strange sail to leeward; and, about six in the evening, we came up with and re-captured the Princess Royal packet, from the West Indies. Next morning, Captain Alms, finding himself much worse, resolved to put into Torbay. We accordingly bore up and shaped a course, which, if our reckoning had been correct, would have carried us far enough to the westward of Ushant. But, unfortunately, owing to the thickness of the weather (not having had an observation for some days), and to the different set of the tides, which are very strong on this coast, the ship had got nearly three degrees to the east of her reckoning; and at twelve o'clock the same night going under an easy sail, that the prize might be able to keep up, breakers were discovered ahead. It was extremely foggy, and the ship was going at the rate of about seven knots, with the wind almost right aft, so that our endeavours to clear the danger were ineffectual. In a moment the ship struck with great violence and was instantly so completely surrounded with rocks, that we could not even see the opening which we had entered. In this dreadful situation we continued nearly three quarters of an hour, the ship, from the great surf that ran among the rocks, striking so violently, that we every moment expected she would go to pieces.